Chapter 5

The knock on the door bounced off the walls seeming harmful; the loud door opened- standing there was Veronica Hastings. Confusion surrounded the air but for lawyers it's in their nature to give off a scary impression and Mrs Hastings (including her husband) succeeded in every prospect.

"Spencer will you please come downstairs? Your dinner's ready." The teenager sat in silence wrapped up in her duvet facing away from her mother. Not one response came from her mouth. Mrs Hastings continued to speak while walking towards her daughter's bed and sat down, "Sweetie, I understand how hard this is for you but would she really want you to be like this? Spencer everyone is trying so hard to find her I promise. Aria-"

"Can you not say her name? You have no idea what I'm going through." Spencer started to raise her voice as she continued talking. "My best friend is missing and somehow nobody saw her when we were found. Nothing makes sense anymore. So please, try and justify yourself as to why you would understand!"

Silence followed through again but Spencer's outburst shattered the uncomfortableness into a million pieces giving a more dreadful sense to the atmosphere. "And the police have no idea what they're doing, they would've found her by now. It's been months…" her last sentence caused her to drift off into her own sickening thoughts for her to only come face to face with reality that everything she went through last year was happening again- but worse.

"Can I just be alone?"

"Okay but will you eat something?"

A small "whatever" fell out of the teenagers mouth as she sunk back into the suffocating covers.

The next day

"Are you okay?"

"What kind of a question is that Hanna? What do you want me to say? 'Everything's fine Hanna I'm all happy and rosy while our best friend is nowhere to be seen and is probably getting tortured twenty-four seven and we can't do anything but it's okay cause we're just gonna sit around for the police to sort it because they're so great at that!'"

Hanna Marin and Spencer sat back down in their respective chairs in the brew, slumped down so they could hide from the world.

Emily piped up trying to smooth the waters by trying to somehow change the topic, but for the next ten minutes the conversations would always lead back to Aria. "Spencer, we get how you feel so let's just calm down and try to think things through."

"No I'm stopping until she's found, Alison get your laptop and start writing." As told Spencer was now in charge of the situation switching roles with Alison DiLaurentis. "I need you to tell me exactly what happened the night you found us. We can piece it all together and maybe it will lead us to her. Hanna get Caleb to get here now, we need all information, coordinates, everything."

"And what about Toby?" Emily questioned.

"Tanner's got him all caught up in work, basically lockdown. They're so called trying to solve the case so he can't leave but with their history it'll be impossible."

The sarcastic tone of, "great" could only be followed by the the four other girls.

"There could be footage or something, something that we missed while we weren't looking or not there. We need to get Caleb and Toby to try and trace anything that could help us." Emily pleaded

Alison responded quietly, "Couldn't this be dangerous? We need to be careful." It was what they were all thinking.

"And we will." sharply reciprocated by Spencer.

"We need to tell Ezra about this, has anyone heard from him recently?"

The other four shook their heads in response clearly in concern over their best friend's boyfriend.

Later at Hanna's house

"Hey, sorry I couldn't be here sooner I can only stay for a bit but I managed to get some stuff that could help." Toby rambled as he walked through the door towards the aggravated group of friends as they waited in anticipation of his arrival.

"Has anyone tried to call Ezra, I did but he didn't answer and he deserves to be here." Hanna said while putting her phone down on the worktop which they were all sat around looking at Caleb's laptop, trying to hint to one of the boys to try getting hold of him.

"I'll try, maybe he was out or something." Toby spoke as he started to dial Ezra's number but a few moments later he was hit with voicemail. "Nothing, we can try again later maybe if we had some news he'd be willing to talk I mean we're all struggling with this but she's his girlfriend."

"I just wish we could be there for him, none of us have seen him in months we don't know how he's coping." Emily spoke.

"Or if he's coping…" Everyone turned around and shot Hanna a glance of annoyance and disappointment.

"Not helping, Hanna." Spencer said to her in the same tone her friend said some remark like this that was never needed in moments 'similar' to this.

"Wait guys can you be quiet for a moment? I think I found something." All eyes were on Caleb then to the screen on his laptop realising they could be close with a potential breakthrough.

All that could be seen on the screen was a forest, the speed of the footage getting faster and faster then returning to normal speed when the unfamiliar hit.

"Wait Toby was this the footage Tanner wanted to look at?" Alison questioned.

"Yeah.."

"Then how did anyone miss this?"

There in front of them were two people. Clones.

"Two black hoodies." Hanna stated the obvious.

"This- this doesn't make sense. Who's behind this? We all thought it was Andrew but he's missing!" Spencer yelled louder and louder. The footage carried on showing the two mysteries carrying a large object- what seemed to be a body out of shot and into the unknown.

All that filled the air was a unison of, "Oh my god." In utter disbelief as to what they just witnessed. Was Aria carried somewhere else so she deliberately wouldn't be found? But since when were there two people?

"We need to tell Ezra. Now!" Spencer screamed.

"What if he doesn't answer?" Caleb questioned.

"I don't care what it takes I will break down his door if I have to. With this… We could find Aria."

No longer than ten minutes the entire group was stood outside Ezra's apartment, 3B. No-one knew what could happen, how he would react. Clueless.

Spencer knocked on the door loudly, just like Veronica Hastings did- it was in her blood. Nothing. She knocked on the green door once again, it slowly and only slightly opened so the occupant on the other side could see who was there but he was invisible.

"Hey…"

If you've read this far, thank you so much it means a lot. I am also deeply sorry or not uploading sooner, my plan was to upload before I went on holiday but I became so busy I had no time and I wanted to write an acceptable chapter, hopefully it's good enough and I'm sorry cause it's pretty bad. Please give feedback if you can and I hope to update as soon as I can :)